1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a setting value management apparatus, setting value management method, and computer-readable medium. Particularly, the present invention relates to a technique of reflecting, in another image forming apparatus, configuration data serving as setting values for switching the operation of an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some image forming apparatuses store configuration data serving as setting values for switching the operation. Configuration data is stored in the storage device of each image forming apparatus. To change configuration data of all image forming apparatuses, setting needs to be executed for the number of image forming apparatuses. To omit this cumbersome operation, there is a technique for setting configuration data at once in a plurality of image forming apparatuses from an information processing apparatus.
There is also proposed a technique of managing configuration data at once by arranging configuration data in a location where it can be referred to via a network, and referring to the same configuration data by a plurality of image forming apparatuses (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-130838).
Some image forming apparatuses include a preset button for storing setting values in advance. Setting data of this preset button is also part of configuration data.
Various models are proposed for image forming apparatuses, and the setting range of configuration data often differs between the respective models. For example, the settable range is wide for a high-end model physically having a large memory capacity and narrow for a low-end model having a small memory capacity. Hence, configuration data is prepared for each model. Every time configuration data is reflected from a given model to another, the administrator needs to change/delete configuration data exceeding the setting range.
If configuration data is arranged on a network without changing or deleting it, an image forming apparatus which refers to it rejects settings exceeding the range or makes settings only within the setting range, and cannot reflect the same settings. For example, as for a transmission destination count registered for the ScanToSend preset button, a high-end model allows registering 100 destinations, and a low-end model allows registering up to 50 destinations. In case of generation of a fault during transmission, untransmitted data is often saved in a memory such as a static RAM. However, the static RAM is generally expensive, so the above limitation is placed. In this case, the settings of the ScanToSend preset button of the high-end model in which 70 destinations are registered cannot be reflected in the low-end model.